Component Detection and Management Using Relationships

4. The automatic method of claim 2 wherein determining similarity in relationships in the first set of components and the second set of components uses rules that specify conditions to be satisfied.

5. The automatic method of claim 4, further including specifying the rules by configurable aspects that are portable between instances.

6. The automatic method of claim 4, wherein the rules include rules that evaluate collected data relevant to one or more components.

9. The automatic method of claim 8 further comprising storing representations of the identified relationship(s) in the at least one database.

12. The automatic method of claim 1 further comprising identify at least one component in the first component set and at least one component in the second component set as being the same component by matching child components with associated parent components.

16. The computing system of claim 14 wherein determining similarity in relationships in the first set of components and the second set of components uses rules that specify conditions to be satisfied.

17. The computing system of claim 16 wherein the operations further comprise specifying the rules by configurable aspects that are portable between instances.

18. The computing system of claim 16, wherein the rules include rules that evaluate collected data relevant to one or more components.

21. The computing system of claim 20 wherein the operations further comprise storing representations of the identified relationship(s) in the at least one database.

24. The computing system of claim 13 wherein the operations further comprise identify at least one component in the first component set and at least one component in the second component set as being the same component by matching child components with associated parent components.